City Council OKs nearly $40M for 2013 budget

Editor's note: The $800,000 increase in the Department of Public Safety was corrected to indicate that it represents not only an increase in the cost of health insurance, but also an increase in the cost of retirement benefits.

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- The city passed a $39.7 million budget for 2013 in a split vote Monday night.

The budget is up more than $2.5 million over the 2012 budget, but the property tax levy will actually drop by a minute percent.

That means residents with a home assessed at $200,000 will pay 11 cents less in 2013 than they did in city property taxes in 2012.

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This represents the second consecutive year the city will reduce taxes by a minute percentage, and Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan's first budget.

Madigan was praised by both of the other Democrats on the City Council -- Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen and Accounts Commissioner John Franck -- for the budget, while both Republicans -- Mayor Scott Johnson and Commissioner of Public Works Anthony "Skip" Scirocco -- voted against it.

The budget includes five new positions in the Department of Public Safety. The city will hire two new firefighters, two new police officers and one new dispatcher.

Public Safety represents more than half of the city's budget and saw a $1.3 million, 6.4 percent increase over last year's budget. The biggest spending increase in that department is for health insurance and retirement benefits, which represents a nearly $800,000 increase over 2012.

The rest of the increase is primarily due to the new positions coupled with the loss of a federal grant that paid for seven firefighting positions for the last two years.

At the same time, Scirocco said the approved budget will mean layoffs for his department, a charge Madigan, who crafted the budget, flatly disagreed with.

"This is a good budget; it works," Madigan told him during a debate that devolved into an argument at times.

"It works for you because it's your re-election budget," Scirocco said. He argued during budget workshops that a cut of $127,000 to a labor line would mean laying off one full-time and four part-time positions.

"When you reduce a labor line, you take a body out," he said. "We're doing a lot more with a lot less. I don't think it's too much to ask to give me the tools I need to get the job done out there."

Madigan restored nearly $50,000 to Scirocco's budget Monday and said layoffs would only occur out of Scirocco's mismanagement of the budget.

"You need to manage your budget as you see fit," she said. "It's unfortunate that the two Republicans at the table aren't supporting a slight property tax reduction."

"Stop with the party-line nonsense," Johnson retorted.

The mayor called into question the costs associated with the ambulance service that Public Safety took over earlier this year.

He said the $1.3 million increase in Public Safety is "not sustainable," and that he has not seen supporting documents to back up the revenue figures in ambulance service, which is projected to bring in $700,000 in 2013, its first full year.

Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen, who spearheaded the city fire department's adoption of ambulance transport service, said the revenue estimates are "conservative" and will likely be higher than what is projected.

Furthermore, he said the city employees were already providing emergency medical service but hadn't been collecting money for it. "We're getting revenue in so many ways we were getting no revenue for in the past," Mathiesen said.

"Doing simple math, you are still up more than $1 million," Johnson said, but Mathiesen argued that was due to the SAFER grant being eliminated.

Accounts Commissioner John Franck countered, saying the ambulance service "has really been a home run," and adding that without it "we would have had a tax increase this year."

Johnson and Scirocco also questioned whether Madigan had the authority to remove items from the Capital Improvement Program budget, which was approved in September by the City Council.

Madigan argued throughout the process that as Finance commissioner she was entitled to make the $1.1 million in cuts to the originally $4.3 million CIP she made as part of her proposed Comprehensive Budget.

Johnson said Madigan's "unilateral cuts" would "set bad precedent" if the budget were approved and that he is still unsure of whether she had that authority. He said that weighed on his decision to vote against the budget.